Kindle App Updated With Batman and Curious George Support

Holy Kindle app Batman! Photo: Peter McCollough/Wired

Amazon’s latest Kindle app update for Android, iOS and Cloud Viewer was released on Thursday, and fans of comic books and reading to their children should take note: The update adds support for reading graphic novels panel by panel, as well as enlarged text pop-ups for children’s books.

The Panel View panel-by-panel reading experience for graphic novels and comic books is slightly different from the feature found in the Comics app from Comixology. Instead of presenting the expanded panel alone on screen, the Kindle app zooms in on the the comic panel, and darkens the panels behind it. You simply swipe to advance to the next panel. The zoomed-in panel-by-panel method reduces the chance of accidentally seeing a later panel on a page, and ruining the flow of the story.

For children’s books, Amazon has introduced the Text Pop-Up feature that enlarges the text of a story, and pulls it out of the artwork into its own text box. The enlarged text is great for reading along with children. It’s also helpful for people with poor eyesight.

The Panel View and Pop-Up Text features only work with supported titles. Amazon says that 1,000 comic book and children’s book titles are currently available in the Kindle Store and support Panel View and Text Pop-Up.

Amazon has been bullish on bringing its Kindle app to as many devices as possible. Even though the online retailer has its own line of Kindle e-readers and the Kindle Fire, its main focus is to sell wares on as many platforms as possible.